LONG BEACH  There was an interesting dynamic happening Wednesday at the first day of the Fred Hall Fishing Tackle, Boat and Travel Show in Long Beach.

Anglers were stacked three and four deep at the booth manned by Corey Sanden and his crew. They were gobbling up Sanden’s newest styles of MC Swimbaits like albacore in the port corner of a sport boat during a wide-open bite.

Across the aisle, Eagle Claw, makers of the only fish hook continuously made in America since the 1920s, received a residual bump in attention. Sanden showed the anglers the new weighted Eagle Claw TroKar swimbait hooks with a spring keeper, and described the hooks as very good matches to his swimbaits.

“The hook is a size bigger than the actual 8/0 Owner hook I designed the bait to fit, but it fits it, and I really like it,” Sanden said.

That endorsement couldn’t have come at a better time for Eagle Claw. Always a competitor in the freshwater game, Eagle Claw has mounted a big push into the saltwater arena with its new Lazer TroKar hooks that are the world’s first surgically sharpened hooks.

Over in the Eagle Claw booth, category manager Matt Gray and manufacturing representative John Florance, who recently relocated to San Diego, marveled at the symbiotic relationship that developed between MC Swimbaits and Eagle Claw. But one man didn’t quit smiling all night Wednesday, and that was Tenny Mount, the hook’s designer.

“It was really Lee McGill (grandson of Drew McGill, co-founder of Eagle Claw with Stan Wright) who challenged me to make this hook,” Mount said. “He said if you want a better fish hook you’re going to have to design it yourself. I believed in the hook. I’m the second-worst fisherman in the world. But when I used it, I found that I had a 95 percent hook-up-to-land ratio. If I can have that kind of ratio landing fish, it has to be the hook.”

Drew McGill is credited for coming up with the idea and the name for Eagle Claw. As legend has it, McGill was fly-fishing on the Upper Colorado River when he spotted an eagle land on a dead cottonwood tree above him. He watched the hawk latch onto the dead limb with his sharp talons. McGill looked down at his hooks, ran one across the leather of his fish creel, but the hook didn’t penetrate the leather. He then took pliers out, curved the point like an eagle’s talons, and that day the hook, the name and the legend was born.

Now it’s men like Mount, 63, of Portland, Ore., who are carrying on the Eagle Claw tradition with new innovations. Mount’s father, Paul, is the man holding a stringer of trout in the photograph on the famous package of Eagle Claw snell hooks. Paul Mount worked for Eagle Claw, and his photo on that package is one of the more recognized in the business.

“For years and years I tried to get the company to do needle-pointed hooks, but we kind of refused to because we felt it wasn’t the correct technology for us at the time,” Mount said. “But when I was challenged with creating this new design, we came up with TroKar. What I really like about this new point is that we were able to go extreme, extreme sharp along with extreme, extreme heavy durability. We have sharp and durable on this hook.”

Tenny and Eagle Claw were convinced after a few fishing trips, including one to Costa Rica.

“That’s where we had that 95 percent land ratio for dorado, sailfish, roosterfish, wahoo, everything across the board,” Tenny said. “The hook-up ratio to land ratio became pretty much the same. We were convinced it was the right technology and right hook point.”

Here in Southern California, the Denver-based Eagle Claw already has signed up some top captains to use the hooks. Tenny said the Royal Polaris, Shogun and Intrepid have signed on. On Wednesday night at the Fred Hall Show, Eagle Claw hosted a two-hour meet-and-greet with any captain in the fleet who was at the show. They received sample hooks, a TroKar boat bag and a presentation on the new hooks.

“We’re doing really well with our TroKar freshwater hooks with pro bass fishermen like Skeet Reese, Brent Chapman, Gerald Swindle, Shaw Grigsby and Jonathon VanDam,” Tenny said. “Saltwater is our next challenge. We had to invest in new machinery and grinders to be able to grind the bigger sizes. We’re still working on another grinder, and by June, we’ll be grinding bigger sizes.”

South Florida fishing captain Blair Wiggins of the popular TV show, “Addictive Fishing,” is a big believer in the effectiveness of the Eagle Claw TroKar hooks.

“It’s the sharpest hook I’ve ever used,” Wiggins said. “Setting a hook on a tarpon is like setting a hook into this table, they’re so tough. The first time I used it I had some prototypes. I had about 24, and the guy I was fishing with stole 15 of them from me. That’s when I knew they were special.”